Locked On Rangers Podcast Feb. 28: Ezequiel Duran has tools, should Rangers steal more bases, expectations for Josh Jung
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00:00 It's Leap Day and on today's show I'm talking about Josh Young making a big leap in year
00:04 two as a starter for your Texas Rangers.
00:06 Talk about all that and more on this episode of Locked on Rangers.
00:09 Let's get into it.
00:12 You are Locked on Rangers.
00:14 Your daily Texas Rangers podcast.
00:18 Part of the Locked on Podcast Network.
00:21 Your team, every day.
00:23 You are Locked on to the World Series Champion, Texas Rangers.
00:37 I'm Bryce Patrick, a cripplingly addicted Texas Rangers fan, covering this team for
00:40 ten seasons, including all five as the founder and host of this podcast.
00:43 Thank y'all so much for making Locked on Rangers your first listen every single day.
00:47 If you're not already, you can follow me on Twitter @BrycePatrick.
00:49 You can follow the show @LockedOnRangers.
00:52 Hit subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and on YouTube where the best way
00:55 you can help grow the show is to comment nearly any single thing below.
00:59 Before we get into the Rangers' first televised game of the spring, Zekiel Durand making some
01:04 impressions talking about this team stealing more bases and of course the big leap that
01:08 Josh Young is hopefully going to make this year.
01:11 Today's episode is brought to you by GameTime.
01:13 Download the GameTime app, create an account and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first
01:17 purchase.
01:18 Now the Rangers, it took them until almost March, not quite March, but the Rangers finally
01:23 got their first televised game of the spring.
01:27 Thank you to the Dodgers.
01:29 Thank you to Yoshinobu Yamamoto for making your first start.
01:32 And so the Rangers finally got to see, Rangers fans finally got to see their players on TV
01:39 or I guess on MLB TV or wherever else you were watching this game.
01:45 But another win for the Rangers go to four, one and one in the Cactus League.
01:49 Going for that Cactus League title, they are still behind the Dodgers who are five and
01:53 one.
01:54 Very important for this Cactus League title.
01:56 I forgot what the actual name of the trophy is this year because apparently they change
02:00 it every single year because, because why not?
02:04 Because why wouldn't they?
02:05 But this is a solid game for the Rangers.
02:07 The star of the show was obviously Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 300 plus million dollar man
02:13 coming over from Japan, who I saw described on Twitter as his pitching style looks like
02:20 a batting practice coach slash home run derby thrower.
02:25 And yet he is incredibly good.
02:28 And yes, he was incredibly good.
02:30 I mean, his first, his first batter that he faced was Marcus Simeon and he got Marcus
02:34 Simeon to strike out, which is not something that happens quite a bit.
02:38 And he got some really, really bad swings.
02:41 Other rookie Evan Carter did get a single off of him, but he was promptly erased by
02:44 a Wyatt Langford ground into a double play, a very hard hit ball, but ended up turning
02:49 two.
02:50 Cody Bradford looks solid in his two innings of work, a couple of strikeouts, a walk, a
02:53 hit and a hit batter, but worked around that trouble, was able to get out of the jams that
02:58 he put himself in.
02:59 And Kirby Yates, we got to see for the first time this spring and he looked very, very
03:04 good.
03:05 A perfect ending of work, a couple of strikeouts and, and man, he was, he was painting the
03:10 corners.
03:11 He looked really, really good against this Dodgers lineup.
03:14 That is incredibly talented.
03:15 Again, it's just one spring outing, so it's hard to read too much into it, but an exciting
03:19 and encouraging start from Kirby Yates in a Texas Rangers uniform.
03:24 We got to see Josh Spores pitch for the first time since game five of the world series and
03:28 it did not go as well as game five of the world series.
03:33 No glove spike on his strikeout, did give up a hit, a walk, a home run.
03:38 The hit was the home run, a two run bomb, but the Rangers still prevailed.
03:43 Got some nice stuff out of Jake Latz, who I really was impressed with in his outing
03:47 of work.
03:48 I think that he might be pushing for one of those lefty spots in the pen, kind of a dark
03:52 horse candidate, but you know, he was solid last year, played just a little bit at the
03:57 big league level with the Rangers.
03:59 Just came in and basically just some innings eating situations late on in the season.
04:04 I believe just a September call up, but hey, those innings were valuable.
04:08 Every inning in the regular season was valuable last year and even though he was just munching
04:12 on some innings and entirely in losses, it was saving that bullpen and saving those starters
04:18 and saving anybody else who might come in there from having to throw too many innings.
04:23 The Rangers needed every bit of work they could get.
04:25 Latz was solid in his inning of work, a couple of strikeouts, a couple of hits and a walk.
04:29 Got himself into a jam, got himself out of the jam with a couple of big old strikeouts.
04:34 That was encouraging stuff from him.
04:37 And really for me on the offensive side, the star of the show was Ezekiel Durant.
04:42 Continues his very, very hot spring, had a couple of hits, including a triple that he
04:46 absolutely laced to center field.
04:48 Kind of a misplay by the center fielder who maybe could have caught it, but Ezekiel Durant
04:53 hit the snot out of the ball like he does very often and turned on those jets.
04:57 And I don't know about you, but sometimes I forget how fast Ezekiel Durant is because
05:01 we don't see that straight line speed a whole lot because he's not playing the outfield
05:04 nearly as much, especially during this spring training when the Rangers don't have Corey
05:08 Seager and they don't have Josh Young.
05:10 So he's playing the left side of that infield.
05:13 Still would like him to get some more reps in the outfield, but I mean, it seems like
05:17 at this point, maybe backup reps at shortstop and third base and maybe first base are going
05:23 to be where he gets most of his plate appearances because that outfield is, is pretty stacked.
05:28 And the fourth outfielder is going to be the guy who's probably DHing every day in white
05:32 Langford.
05:33 So just seeing Ezekiel Durant uncork a massive throw, seeing him pull off that power, seeing
05:39 him turn on those jets just reminds you how toolsy a guy this prospect is.
05:45 And on most other teams, this would be a starting player somewhere, some position, other teams
05:52 would find a way to start this guy, give him every day at bats, whether that's at DH, whether
05:57 that's at shortstop or second or third or first or heck even in the outfield, the guy
06:03 is an incredibly talented player, but it shows you it's a testament to how stinking good
06:09 this lineup is that, uh, there's not an everyday spot right now for Zeke Durant, but you do
06:16 have a star shortstop in Corey Seager who has had some injury issues in the past and
06:20 had some injury issues as recently as last year.
06:23 And Zeke Durant kept this team afloat and was absolutely magnificent for that first
06:28 half and absolutely crucial in the Rangers keeping their heads above water, not only
06:32 above water, but dominating other teams and holding that big old lead in the AOS for the
06:37 first half.
06:38 Zeke Durant is a guy you should not be sleeping on and these at bats for him in spring training
06:43 are massive to show, Hey, yeah, you left me off the playoff roster for the most part.
06:48 I got on there at the very end, did not play at all because of that Adonis Garcia injury,
06:53 but this is still a valuable guy to this team, a valuable guy to this franchise.
06:57 And I think there's, I see very little way that he does not make the opening day roster
07:03 and having that kind of depth on your team is incredibly important and incredibly good.
07:09 This team, one thing I've noticed about spring training is that the Rangers have been stealing
07:12 bases.
07:13 It feels like a little bit more often.
07:15 We've got, uh, eight stolen base attempts so far.
07:18 Last year, the Rangers were not very aggressive with the new rules in stolen base attempts,
07:22 despite having a lot of pretty fast players.
07:25 Honestly, they were very low in the attempt rate.
07:29 They were good when they stole bases, but they did not attempt them very often.
07:33 Last year, the Rangers stole 79 bases, which was the 27th most in major league baseball.
07:39 The only teams they were ahead of were the angels, the Rockies and the giants who were
07:42 in dead last.
07:44 But their success rate was among the best in baseball.
07:48 They stole bases at an 82.4% success rate last year.
07:52 That was the seventh best rate in major league baseball.
07:56 And most of the other teams that are succeeding that much were, were much higher in the attempts.
08:01 The Mets were the best in terms of success rate, and they had the 13th most stolen bases.
08:08 Dimebacks had the second best success rate and they had the second most stolen base,
08:12 uh, attempts and, or successes, I should say.
08:16 Phillies, uh, the third best success rate, seventh in attempts.
08:21 Twins were the fourth, fifth best, or yes, sorry.
08:26 Fourth best in attempts, uh, in the 23rd.
08:29 They're the only team that was in the top 7% or that was ahead of the Rangers.
08:33 That wasn't in the top 10 in attempts ahead of the Rangers in success rate versus attempts.
08:39 And I think that's something that might change this year, not because, uh, just because the
08:43 Rangers are gonna have a philosophy change, but I think a lot of it is going to be due
08:47 to the personnel.
08:48 I mean, last year I thought the Rangers should have been a little bit more aggressive.
08:52 A few guys who had been more aggressive in the past were a little bit less aggressive.
08:56 We saw fewer stolen base attempts from Marcus Simeon than the year before, but a better
09:00 success rate, just 14 stolen bases and only three times caught stealing.
09:04 He was up over the 20 mark last year.
09:07 I believe he had, uh, yes, 25 stolen bases, but eight times he was caught stealing.
09:12 Adoles Garcia had been more aggressive in the past, but he was, had a great success
09:15 rate, nine stolen bases, just one time caught stealing.
09:19 And the Rangers stolen base leader last year, some of you might know this, but it was not
09:23 a guy who was pretty much every guy.
09:25 It was Travis Jankowski, 19 stolen bases, just one time caught stealing.
09:30 Travis Jankowski was an absolute monster on the bases last year.
09:34 The only other guys in double digit stolen bases last year for the Rangers were, uh,
09:39 the only Tavares and yep.
09:43 That's it.
09:44 Not a whole lot of double digit stolen bases from guys last year.
09:47 Zeke Duran had a much better success rate, just eight stolen bases, just four times caught
09:51 stealing Carter.
09:52 Evan Carter was, was three and oh, and I think that is one of the things that is going to
09:56 lead to more stolen base of the Rangers as a team.
09:59 Usually these teams that are way up there in the successful stolen base category, they
10:04 have one guy who just goes absolutely nuclear.
10:07 Now I don't know if Evan Carter is going to have like 50 stolen bases like Corbin Carroll
10:11 or 70 stolen bases like Ronald Cooney Jr. did last year, but I think he's definitely
10:16 going to be up there in the attempts.
10:17 He's very fast.
10:18 He knows when to run.
10:20 I think Wyatt Langford is going to have quite a few stolen base attempts this year, and
10:23 I think we'll still see quite a bit from Travis Jankowski whenever he's in from Lele Tavares
10:27 whenever he's playing.
10:29 I think it was Garcia.
10:30 We might see even less stolen base attempts from him.
10:33 Maybe bump it up a little bit from Marcus Simeon, but overall, I think this team is
10:37 going to be a lot more aggressive on the base pass because they've got such a fast lineup,
10:41 a fast outfield as well.
10:42 And if you're DH in Wyatt Langford, I think we'll probably get at least 10 stolen base
10:47 attempts or at least 10 successful stolen bases this year, depending on when he comes
10:51 up.
10:52 If your DH is swiping bag for you, you have got a fast, fast team.
10:55 Some of the Rangers did back in the 2010s that made them very successful, especially
10:59 with these new rules.
11:00 I don't see why they weren't more aggressive last year, but I think that's something they
11:04 can definitely take advantage of and another way they can get even better in 2024.
11:08 Coming over to talk about, about what we saw from that first game, what we saw from this
11:14 game and a little bit of injury news that popped up right before I started recording
11:18 this podcast.
11:19 Right after this, we'll have more sponsors.
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12:38 Shout out to the everydayers for making Lockdown Rangers your first listen every single day.
12:41 I'll be back later tonight talking about Evan Carter, what to expect from the youngster
12:46 in his first full season in the big leagues.
12:50 Now right before I started recording this episode, we got some injury news.
12:53 Unfortunately, Dustin Harris was scratched late from today's lineup and according to
12:57 Bruce Bochy, it was just "a little soreness in the oblique area."
13:03 So hopefully it's nothing too major for Dustin Harris.
13:06 I don't think that Harris is going to make the opening day roster, but definitely some
13:11 triple A depth that if there are an injury or a couple injuries at the major league level
13:16 in the outfield, Dustin Harris is a guy who I think would be right up there for the call
13:21 to come up on the roster.
13:23 Now I don't know if he would start every day, it would take a little bit of more injuries
13:26 for him to get up there, but hey, you'd hate to see anybody get hurt in spring training.
13:30 Hopefully it's just a couple of days, just a little bit of soreness and he ends up being
13:33 okay.
13:34 Now a couple of news and notes that came in yesterday.
13:36 The Rangers are adding some more TV games.
13:39 Thankfully it's about freaking time.
13:42 It is, uh, the Rangers were one of the fewest televised games in spring training.
13:47 They had, I believe, seven on the books and including a wave broadcast, but the Rangers
13:53 will add games on March 12th versus Cleveland, March 19th versus Oakland, March 22nd versus
14:01 the Rockies, March 26th, the last spring training game versus Boston, which will be at Globe
14:08 Life Field.
14:09 Thankfully, the Rangers are going to be playing those games on TXA 21.
14:13 So if you do not have bally sports, you might be able to catch some Rangers spring training
14:19 games.
14:20 The Rangers finally got that deal ironed out with bally.
14:22 So there, that's why there were so many questions and it was so late on that the Rangers were
14:27 broadcasting their first televised game.
14:30 I mean, it's, it was about four, I believe four games that the Rangers were initially
14:35 going to broadcast.
14:36 It was the March 14th, the 16th, the 18th and the 25th.
14:41 One of those, uh, pre whatever, uh, dress rehearsal games in a Globe Life Field that
14:47 are going to be against Boston the couple of days before the regular season starts.
14:51 Thankfully, the Rangers will have several more games.
14:53 There will also be several away broadcasts.
14:56 Um, hopefully I enjoy the, the away games more because I mean, those are more often
15:01 televised than, than these Rangers games.
15:03 And also the away stadiums sometimes have stat cast data, which the Rangers still don't
15:08 have in their spring training facility.
15:11 I don't know why it's kind of annoying, especially going to be very annoying, not seeing what
15:15 the radar gun is saying for all these pitches for an AE of volley, because that is one of
15:19 the most important things that I'm tracking this spring training.
15:22 But alas, I digress some bad news that came through the other day.
15:26 I believe it was yesterday.
15:28 Former Texas Rangers coach Hector Ortiz passed away at the age of 84.
15:32 He had been battling cancer.
15:33 He was a long time Rangers coach.
15:35 He was a, I believe a third base coach also spent some time as a bullpen coach, first
15:40 base coach, excuse me, bullpen coach, a little bit time as a catching coordinator from 2015
15:46 to 2020, uh, thoughts and prayers with Hector Ortiz and his family, a beloved member of
15:51 the Rangers coaching staff and a very sad to see him no longer with us anymore.
15:57 Now on a very different note, we are going to talk about Josh Young, Josh Young, a guy
16:02 who I have watched for many, many years, a guy who I have been a big, big believer in
16:07 since I saw him as a freshman at Texas Tech University, many, many moons ago, I was still
16:14 a young bushy eyed, bright, bright, bushy tailed, bright eyed college student, uh, full
16:19 of hope and optimism in the Rangers future.
16:22 And that was definitely placed well because, uh, little did I know the Rangers would be
16:26 winning a world series championship in 2023 with the guy that I was watching at the time
16:31 as a freshman at Texas Tech in Josh Young was a Rangers first round pick out of Texas
16:36 Tech after three years there really didn't spend a whole lot of time in the minors due
16:41 to injuries was a very polished hitter from the time that the Rangers drafted him six
16:46 overall in the 2019 MLB draft.
16:50 Just a very, very good hitter, not a whole lot of hope for his defense, which he really
16:55 proved all of us skeptics wrong of guys who had watched him for a long, long time.
16:59 I thought, all right, Josh Young is going to hit.
17:02 Is he going to play defense?
17:04 Great at third base.
17:06 He's going to hit the profile on Josh Young.
17:09 Basically from the time he started at Texas Tech, did spend some time in college at shortstop,
17:14 but that was, was not pretty.
17:16 He is not a shortstop, but he is a darn good defensive third baseman.
17:21 That is one of the things that surprised everyone this year.
17:24 One of the things that I loved about Josh Young is it's not just that he is a good hitter,
17:27 a polished hitter, a was a very well-rounded hitter in college, hit to all fields, walked
17:33 at a pretty decent rate, didn't strike out too much.
17:36 And that kind of changed as he went through the minors.
17:39 And especially in the big leagues, that was basically his, his biggest problem was, was
17:43 not walking nearly enough and striking out at a very alarming clip.
17:48 But the defense, I mean, this guy is a gym rat.
17:51 He is every kind of, you know, scrappy baseball obsessed adjective that you could hope to
17:58 ascribe to a player.
18:00 And the times where he was sitting on the bench because he was injured because of those
18:04 random frequent injuries, whether it was the broken foot, the stress fracture in his foot
18:09 in spring training several years back, whether it was the torn labrum that we thought was
18:14 going to take him out for the entire year in 2022, but he worked his butt off and he
18:20 sat there and he was still around spring training was still trying to glean every single bit
18:24 of knowledge he could from every big leaguer around him ended up making his debut that
18:28 year was still playing hurt for those last two months where he came up and got back and
18:33 got healthier faster than anybody thought.
18:35 And then last year, all he did was take the league by storm, start the all-star game and
18:40 win a world series in his first full season as a big leaguer.
18:44 He was a huge part of the Rangers offense last year.
18:47 I mean, he absolutely crushed the ball and he absolutely dominated lefties.
18:52 I mean, he was astoundingly good against left-handed pitching and 117 plate appearances.
18:58 He had nine home runs hit over 325 and OPS just five points short of a thousand against
19:05 lefties.
19:07 The guy destroyed lefties.
19:10 Now against righties, he was not nearly as good.
19:12 His on base was below 300.
19:14 He hit below 250, did have a 718 OPS, 14 home runs in just shy of 400 plate appearances.
19:23 Not great, but not terrible either.
19:26 When I was looking at his expectations for his first full year in the big leagues, there
19:30 were just a couple of counting stats that I wanted for Josh Young that I was hoping
19:34 for for Josh Young.
19:36 I was hoping for obviously a mostly healthy season.
19:39 Unfortunately, due to Jorge Soler hitting the absolute snot of a baseball and hitting
19:43 him right in the thumb in August at the least opportune time, not that there's an opportune
19:48 time to get your thumb broken, but that was really not a good time and kind of led to
19:52 a Rangers spiral.
19:55 But I was hoping for about 20 to 25 bombs.
19:58 I thought that would be a reasonable expectation for the 25 year old rookie.
20:02 I thought an OPS somewhere in the 750 to 800 range and with a 781 OPS, 23 home runs, both
20:09 those check and check and somewhere between a two and three war season.
20:13 I thought that was about what to expect from him last year, a 2.4 war season in 122 games.
20:22 Absolute check, a very successful season for Josh Young, but I think he's still a little
20:27 bit disappointed in the results and definitely thinks that he can do a lot better.
20:31 Even though a lot of these projection systems think, "Hmm, I don't know about that Josh
20:35 Young season.
20:36 He's going to have to prove it to me again."
20:37 I'm kind of looking at what those projections say, what I think he's going to do and what
20:41 he needs to work on to get better in 2024.
20:43 Right after this break from our sponsors.
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21:02 There's all kinds of different bets you can make and I've been talking about Josh Young
21:05 and how I think he is going to be sensational this year.
21:08 Right now if you're wanting to bet on him to be the AL MVP, you've got some steep odds.
21:12 The 26th best odds according to FanDuel, plus 12,000 just ahead of Tristan Kassas and just
21:20 behind Giancarlo Stanton of the Yankees and just behind his teammates, of course, Corey
21:25 Seager up there in the top three.
21:27 Marcus Simeon up there in the top 12, I believe, and Adoles Garcia just a little bit ahead
21:31 of him at plus 8,000.
21:33 Go check out those odds.
21:34 See what bets you want to make.
21:35 Go to FanDuel.com/LockedOn and shoot your shot.
21:39 FanDuel, official sports book partner of the NBA.
21:46 Shout out to the everydayers for making LockedOn Radio your first lesson every single day.
21:49 I want to fry all you back and talking about what we've learned from the first couple weeks
21:52 of spring training and maybe a little bit of your mailbag questions I'll be able to
21:56 get to.
21:57 Now, Josh Young, the things that he did well last year.
22:01 Hit the absolute tarnation out of the baseball.
22:03 Play defense.
22:06 And those are most of the things that he did very, very well, which as third baseman, that's
22:11 kind of your job.
22:12 Play some solid defense, hit some bombs, and just overall produce some pretty solid offense.
22:19 It's a very offense heavy position.
22:22 He is not the heir apparent to Adrian Beltre because he is not Adrian Beltre.
22:26 And thankfully it has been several years since the Rangers have had Adrian Beltre as their
22:30 third baseman.
22:31 So the expectations on Mr. Joshua Ryan Young to become Adrian Beltre, a first ballot hall
22:38 of famer, a nearly unanimous first ballot hall of famer, those expectations are a little
22:45 bit lower, which is great because Josh Young is his own player and he is a very good player.
22:50 The things that he did very, very well last year in terms of his stat cast profile, the
22:55 outstripped above average, he was in the top 9% of baseball and the sweet spot percentage,
23:00 which means the getting the ball, the barrel of the bat on the ball, top 2% of all of baseball.
23:08 Then you look at his ex-Wobbecon, which is one of those stats on stat cast, even I had
23:13 to look up.
23:14 I'm like, what the heck does this mean?
23:15 Because it said he was in the top 10% at a 0.453 ex-Wobbecon.
23:19 Well that is the expected weight on base average on contact.
23:25 Basically it is a catch all metric that removes strikeouts, walks, and hit by pitches to measure
23:30 the productiveness of a hitter when they put the ball into play.
23:34 So basically how good is he hitting the ball when he makes contact, taking out of account
23:39 strikeouts and walks, which are two things that he did not do well.
23:43 So it makes sense that Josh Young is among the best in ex-Wobbecon or if you look at
23:49 it, it's ex-Wo bacon, which is now how I'm going to see it for the rest of time.
23:55 His ex-Wobbecon is very stinking good because when this guy makes contact, he absolutely
24:00 launches that thing, which is hilarious because I remember very, very vividly a lot of draft
24:07 analysts, a lot of scouts and people who are paid a lot of money, not as much as the actual
24:14 scouts, the actual front office to analyze the draft.
24:17 Those media pundits were saying, I mean, this Josh Young kid, yeah, I mean, he's got an
24:21 advanced approach and maybe he'll go through the minors pretty quickly and he's not going
24:25 to be that great at defense and I don't know if he's going to hit for power.
24:28 This is a guy who was 21 years old at the time and so he wasn't exactly stinging the
24:33 crap out of the baseball because he still had a lot of development to go.
24:38 I mean, when he was 20 years old, he had 12 home runs and six triples at Texas Tech.
24:43 His last year is 15 home runs and 23 doubles, a 636 slugging percentage as a 21 year old
24:51 at Texas Tech.
24:52 It wasn't insane, it wasn't Wyatt Langford level, but I mean, not everybody's going to
24:58 be Wyatt Langford.
24:59 And the thing that I love about Josh Young is another thing that I also love about Wyatt
25:02 Langford is that both these guys are first round picks and both these guys are probably
25:09 going to be really darn good at the big league level.
25:11 Josh Young has already been good at the big league level, already been an all-star.
25:16 And the thing that I love about that is that the Rangers have such a terrible history of
25:21 succeeding with first round draft picks.
25:23 I mean, all of these different metrics, all of these, "Oh, look at how little war the
25:27 Rangers have gotten from first round draft picks since," well, you name it, go back to
25:32 a year, go back the entire 21st century, whatever century this is, I don't even know at this
25:40 point.
25:41 Go back as long as you like and the Rangers have been honestly pretty trashed at first
25:46 round draft picks.
25:47 Now at this point, I think of the first round draft picks that the Rangers have in the big
25:53 leagues right now, I think Josh Young might be the second best because Cole Reagans is
25:58 incredible at this point.
25:59 It would have been nice for Cole Reagans to be incredible here, but I digress.
26:03 Josh Young is a position player, a third baseman, a first round pick, a top first round pick,
26:08 a top 10 pick in a very loaded 2019 draft where the Rangers missed on Josh Young.
26:14 I mean, the other guys in that draft are just insane.
26:16 I mean, Adley Rutschman going 1-1, I believe that was the Bobby Witt Jr. draft.
26:21 I know that Gunnar Henderson was in that draft, one of the first picks after the first round,
26:25 I believe the first pick of the second round.
26:28 And so if the Rangers didn't hit on that 2019 draft, that would be a real bad look because
26:32 of how many darn good players are there.
26:33 But Josh Young, the thing that he needs to improve, it's the thing that I think he can
26:38 improve and I think that he can work with El Bambi, with Adolphe Garcia, because the
26:43 thing that Adolphe Garcia needed to improve, it's the walk rate.
26:48 It's the expanding the strikeout.
26:49 It is the strikeout rate.
26:52 Expanding the strike zone was something that Josh Young did a little bit too frequently
26:55 last year.
26:56 Now, I kept noticing that he kept getting squeezed on the zone, especially in the ALCS,
27:01 especially in that game against Justin Verlander.
27:05 It felt like Verlander was getting all these calls, especially on Josh Young that was forcing
27:10 him to expand the zone because like, well, if Justin Verlander is going to get that call
27:13 three inches, five inches, six inches off the plate, then I got to expand the zone to
27:18 try and stay in this at bat because I don't want to get called out looking on a pitch
27:23 that is well outside the zone.
27:25 So expanding that, not expanding the zone, working that walk rate up to even closer to
27:31 league average.
27:32 Right now, he was in the 16th percentile of walk rate, just walked at a 5.8% clip.
27:37 League average is 8.4%.
27:39 If he could jump that up, that would be huge.
27:42 Doesn't even have to go quite the Adoles Garcia level of increasing his walk rate.
27:47 His rookie year, Adoles Garcia had a 5.1% walk rate, which was in the bottom 6% of league.
27:53 Last year, jumped that all the way up to 10.3%.
27:57 Only bumped it up 1% his second year and then doubled it from his rookie year, more than
28:01 doubled it from his rookie year this year, which is why Adoles Garcia had so much success.
28:06 Now the strikeout rate for Adoles Garcia is still not elite.
28:09 It's still right around where it was in his second full year in the big leagues at 27.7%
28:16 this year.
28:17 It was 27.9% the year before, so not a huge increase.
28:21 But just by working those walks, just by showing the pitchers he is not going to expand the
28:27 zone, Adoles Garcia, one of the things that he did very well is when you're used to expanding
28:33 the zone and when you go from that to taking more pitches, taking more borderline pitches,
28:39 you're going to get rung up more often looking.
28:42 And I think that's something you just got to live with as a hitter.
28:46 Sometimes if you're a patient hitter, if you are taking a lot of borderline pitches, sometimes
28:52 the calls don't go your way and you've got to be okay with that and you've got to live
28:56 with the results of that.
28:59 Because overall, yes, he got called out looking on more pitches that were maybe not strikes
29:06 or maybe were strikes, but pitches that Adoles Garcia would not have taken earlier on in
29:11 his career.
29:13 And the results spoke for themselves.
29:14 I mean, you all saw how incredibly good El Bambi was last year.
29:18 The amount of success, the amount of more quality pitches that he got to hit, and he
29:23 was doing damage when he got those pitches.
29:25 Adoles Garcia was doing damage when he got those pitches earlier in his career, but he
29:29 wasn't getting as many of them.
29:31 That's where Josh Young is right now.
29:33 He doesn't have the insane level of raw power of Adoles Garcia, but that guy's got some
29:38 pop.
29:39 He's got some big boy strengths, some home runs that he hit, a lot of them to the opposite
29:43 field.
29:44 That is not something you can do if you are a not very strong man.
29:48 Joshua Young, Joshua Ryan Young, my large adult son, is a very strong man.
29:54 I remember it very vividly, a grand slam the opposite field he hit against Nestor Cortez
29:59 against the Yankees at home.
30:00 It was a massive shot for him.
30:03 And he did that all over.
30:05 I mean, his spray chart for his home runs, I mean, there are a lot of them.
30:08 It's pretty equally distributed, a little bit more on the pull side, but I mean, you
30:13 just get more pull side power.
30:15 But Josh Young, if you can learn from what Adoles Garcia improved on, talk to him.
30:21 Just talk to the hitting coaching staff.
30:24 We've seen them improve that from Adoles Garcia and from some other guys.
30:29 Part of what led to the breakout year from Ezekiel Durian, he was a very similar hitter
30:33 as well.
30:34 Although I think he was even less prone to walk than Josh Young, even though I think
30:39 he had a higher walk rate last year.
30:41 I mean, the aptitude for walkability for Josh Young, I think that's there.
30:46 I think that's something he's going to develop into his game.
30:47 I think that's something that should happen this year.
30:50 But the projections for him right now, according to a baseball reference, they expect him to
30:56 not have the strongest season this year, which I was kind of perplexed by.
31:01 They project him to have 468 plate appearances, which is even fewer than this past year.
31:07 They expect him to hit 261 with a 780 OPS, which is right around what he did this year.
31:14 Fan Graf's unsurprisingly is a hater on a Rangers player.
31:17 They really penalize him for that strikeout rate and they expect him next year to play
31:20 in significantly more games, 147 as opposed to 122.
31:24 They have his on base at 305 dropping down.
31:27 They have the slugging percentage dropping down.
31:29 They have a batting average dropping down.
31:31 The WRC Plus last year was 10% above league average at 110.
31:34 They expect it to be 102 this year.
31:37 They project him to still have a 2.5 Fan Graf's war, but in 25 more games.
31:44 So an overall worse year.
31:47 I think Josh Young is only going to get better.
31:49 His aptitude, his obsession, his aptitude for greatness, his obsession with baseball
31:55 and the obsession to get every little nugget out of his talent.
31:59 I think that's really what separates him.
32:00 It's one of the things that I think makes Corey Seager so incredibly great.
32:04 And I think that it is something that the Rangers saw in Josh Young when they drafted
32:08 him in the top 10 in 2019.
32:10 He proved them all wrong in his rookie year, making, starting the All-Star game, not just
32:15 making the All-Star game, but starting it.
32:17 And I think the ceiling is incredibly high for Josh Young.
32:21 He's definitely got some ways to go to improve, but this is an incredibly talented player.
32:25 And after an All-Star season and a championship in his first year, the guy has got nowhere
32:30 to go but up.
32:32 That's going to do it for today's show.
32:33 Thank you all so much for listening and subscribing.
32:35 And until next time, don't forget to enjoy World Series Champion, Texas Rangers baseball.
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